


Blossoming Even As We Gaze

by Merlin Missy (mtgat)



Category: Thundercats (1985)
Genre: Coming of Age, F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 20:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1831816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtgat/pseuds/Merlin%20Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lion-O and Cheetara share a sunset.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blossoming Even As We Gaze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miranda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miranda/gifts).



> This wasn't the story it started out to be, but I hope you like what it became.

Sunsets on Third Earth weren't like those on Thundera. Back home, the skies burned red by day and night at the end. The sun had grown to a massive crimson eye leering at a scared little cub, daring him to go outside. Here, cool, crisp greens of the soft, leafy trees contrasted with the icy blue sky and candyfloss clouds, deepening into pinks and purples as the butter yellow sun sank into her warm bed. He sat on the edge of the great cat's head atop the Lair, legs dangling over the side, and he drummed his feet against the dark metal, reveling in the warmth from the day's heat, the sun's power echoing through him before night could come on with a swift chill.

Lion-O laughed a little, inside his head and out loud, at the wonder of it all.

"Something funny?"

A small shiver went through him at Cheetara's voice, and Lion-O's head snapped around to look at her lounging patiently against one metal ear. He'd known her his whole life, another face among the many who were friends with his father, but since their awakening on this colorful, odd world, he'd noticed her more in ways he hadn't thought about back on Thundera. Her pretty yellow and spotted hair shone like the sun. Her markings accentuated the lovely lines of her face. And when she ran....

"Lion-O?"

He snapped out of his reverie. "Sorry, Cheetara. No. I was just watching the sunset." A thick lump settled in his throat. "Care to join me?" His own voice sounded so young and wobbly, even to his own ears.

She smiled, which sent another shiver from his warm bottom all the way up his spine. Then she nimbly stepped over and sat beside him on the edge, watching the cottony clouds nudge the sinking sun.

Lion-O tried not to stare, tried to keep his eyes steady on the horizon, tried very hard to think of something interesting to say. Tygra would probably tell her about the physics of the light, how the length of the sun's rays changed the colors that came to them. Panthro would focus on solar panels, and tools to capture the light, tame it, coax it to work to his bidding. Snarf would whinge that he was getting cold out here and that Lion-O needed a sweater.

Unbidden, a grin came back to his lips. Cheetara smiled again. "It has to be a fantastic joke if you're giggling this much."

"It's nothing," he said, suddenly hot and embarrassed. He was ten seconds away from telling her the sunset wasn't half as beautiful as she was, and then where would he be? Cheetara saw him as a child, nothing more. She was of his parents' generation, a calm, collected adult who made important decisions and fought bravely to protect what was left of their kind. Lion-O still liked to break away from monitor duty to play with Wily Kat and Wily Kit like the three of them had done when they were younger. Except, where the twins still wore the bodies of children, Lion-O had woken up to find himself stuck in the body of a grown man, and likely to stay in it. He knew plenty about being a child, and next to nothing about being an adult.

Did adults find their hands getting sweaty when someone sat next to them on the warm, dark head of the great cat? Did they get all flummoxed and tongue-tied instead of coming up with a mature observation on the nature of sunsets? Lion-O didn't think so. He was certain Tygra's science talk or Panthro's engineering talk would have already led Cheetara into a fascinating conversation about electrons or something.

Come to think of it, although he knew Cheetara was really smart, he couldn't think of a single time she'd been interested in talking about electrons, other than what she could do to help the construction of their machines.

"What do you think about it? I mean, the sunset? I think it's gorgeous. Do you?"

The red hot shame burst over his face, flushing him. That had been a stupid, stupid thing to ask. Cheetara wouldn't think he was intelligent at all.

Unaware of his discomfort, or ignoring it, Cheetara returned her gaze to the skyline. "It is. I love the way the colors play together, the blues and the purples, and the green of the treetops."

"Yeah," he said, thinking he ought to tell her that's what he'd noticed, too, but then he'd sound like he copied. "I like the clouds, too."

"I like the way they frame the sky," she agreed, and her smile faded in the dimming light.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She returned the smile, but now he could see the sadness crouching behind her face. Adults did that a lot, he'd known even as a cub. They'd show one face as a mask to disguise what they felt, the way the clouds drifted over the sun. He could still see the sun behind, but it was easy to get caught up in the clouds.

"You're sad."

"Sunsets are endings. They remind me of all the other endings I've seen. Sometimes, I sit and watch. You know the part when it gets full and fat at half gone? Like an egg curving over itself?"

Lion-O nodded. He tended to see sunrise suns as eggs, growing in the frying pan under Snarf's watchful paw, but sunset was just a sunrise in reverse, right?

"Well, I sit and watch that part." She reached out her arm, and it was a hard struggle not to focus on the slim yet powerful muscles, the sweet taper of her strong wrist. He made himself follow the point of her index finger, to where Third Earth's sun sat at half gone. "Right now. And right now, it could be anything. Half risen, half set. A world of possibilities. But it sinks down, and it's gone, and I remember all the possibilities I've had, friends and lovers and family. I remember decisions I made, and ones I didn't make in time, and the home I lost, and the homes before that."

"I thought you always lived at Cats' Lair," he said, then wished he could take the words back. Of course she'd always been there, in the old Lair, but that was because he'd been so young. He'd had the same revelation when he'd realized his tutor didn't live at the school he'd attended back on Thundera. In his head, adults had never moved, hadn't really existed before him, only as parts of the stories he knew about himself. His parents only existed to give life to him. Jaga himself had lived solely to guide young Lion-O through his life and lead him into the stars. Cheetara had always lived in the Lair as one of the adult Thundercats.

She shrugged. "I didn't."

Lion-O looked back at the sun again. Pulled as though by gravity, the bright disk had dipped lower, now leaving only one golden fingernail's worth of star, and casting the tall trees into deep, gloomy shadows. Day was ending, life was ending, everything would end. The unfairness of ending, of loss and death, these had not touched him as a boy. Even the loss of his mother had confused him more than shaken him, but he had been very young and hadn't understood Father's tear-stained words.

Adulthood meant knowing what death was, meant feeling with a great ache the huge loss of life that radiated out from their doomed home. Adulthood meant understanding how many lives had sparkled into nothing as the refugee ships had been shot into fireworks around the royal flagship. More than all that, adulthood meant knowing his own time would come, and death would close the eyes of everyone he'd ever loved.

Lion-O took a shuddering breath in. "I'm so sorry," he said in a weedy voice, understanding the prick of tears he saw in her eyes.

"Don't be." Cheetara took his hand. A few minutes ago, he would have been overcome with an unfamiliar surge of feeling, and truth be told, he still was, but all that was dwarfed by the need to cling to another person, the sensation of a living pulse grasping his, and both seeking reassurance that death may come, but not now, not today.

"You can feel it, can't you?" she asked, changing her grip on his hand.

"What?"

"You're reading my emotions. It's a talent many of your family have had. I can do it, as part of my sixth sense, but I didn't know you could, too." She smiled at him again, and this smile was genuine and in pleasure. "It's called empathy. It means you feel happy when others are happy, and sad when they're unhappy."

Across their joined hands, Lion-O felt the ebb of her sadness, replaced with curiosity and amusement, and more. Delight. She was delighted that Lion-O shared the same gift she had, and the discovery chased away her lingering sorrows from things past.

"It comes and goes," he said, thinking back on times when he knew without asking, or even seeing their faces, that Tygra was flushed with joy at a new discovery, or that Kit was heartbroken at the loss of a favorite toy.

"I can teach you how to control your power better. You're the Lord of the Thundercats. A good ruler should know how his people feel."

Lion-O bit his lip. "Do you think I'm going to be a good ruler?"

"Of course." She gave his hand a squeeze. "Never doubt yourself, Lion-O. I already know you're going to be a great leader."

Her confidence flowed through him, and her honesty. Pleased, he settled back. They watched the golden glow fade into heliotrope, then deep maroon, then violet so dark it was black. "Would you tell me about your life before you became a Thundercat? Before you lived in the old Lair?"

"Are you certain you want to hear the story? My life wasn't exactly happy, and you'd feel it when I told you the things that still make me sad."

"I know," he said, and he squeezed back. "Maybe it will make you less sad to tell someone."

Another smile, and one that lasted as the night closed in like a velvet blanket and Cheetara spun out the odd tale of her life. "Maybe it will."


End file.
